Scott Maben

It’s shoulder season in Sandpoint. The summer crowds have dispersed and skiers have a couple of months to wait until the slopes open. But there is a bustle in town along the new Sand Creek Byway, the two-mile shortcut around downtown.

Idaho state Sen. John Goedde was in his Coeur d’Alene office around 7 a.m. Monday when he heard and felt a rumble like a small earthquake. “I was just working at my desk and the earth moved,” said Goedde, an insurance broker.

Avista Corp. is asking too much of its customers in its latest push to raise rates 6.3 percent for electricity and 6.9 percent for natural gas, the Washington Attorney General’s Office and the state Utilities and Transportation Commission’s staff said Wednesday. The Spokane-based utility proposes the higher rates to raise an additional $40.9 million from electric customers and another $10.1 million from natural gas customers in Eastern Washington.

Most rural communities lag in the type of broadband Internet service available in urban areas. But northeast of Spokane, in Newport and the surrounding hills and valleys, around 5,000 homes and businesses have the chance to connect soon to a fiber-optic system with lightning-fast speed.
 The network being built by the Pend Oreille Public Utility District will allow users to download and upload data all the way up to 1,000 megabits, or 1 gigabit, per second - far faster than the 10 to 20 megabits that is a popular consumer choice today.

Think of the fastest Internet speed you experience. Now multiply that by 10, 50 or even 100. It’s coming … to Pend Oreille County. Most rural communities lag in the type of broadband Internet service available in urban areas. But northeast of Spokane, in Newport and the surrounding hills and valleys, around 5,000 homes and businesses have the chance to connect soon to a fiber-optic system with lightning-fast speed.

Thieves are creeping down country roads at night cutting copper wire from power poles to sell on the scrap market, leaving hazards for line crews, headaches for utility managers and higher electricity bills for customers. The larceny is nothing new, but it persists even after metal prices have dropped this year. The risk some take to steal the highly conductive, recyclable metal is, well, shocking.

Skiers and snowboarders will find some new lifts and runs as well as some lodge improvements at the five Inland Northwest ski areas this winter. Highlights include lift upgrades at the bunny hills at both Schweitzer Mountain Resort and Lookout Pass; a lodge expansion at Mt. Spokane Ski and Snowboard Park; a new lift and runs at 49 Degrees North Mountain Resort; and a new run at Silver Mountain Resort.

An overlooked park in the heart of Coeur d’Alene will be transformed into a recreational showcase over the next 14 months. In the city’s most expensive park project ever, McEuen Field between downtown and Tubbs Hill will be remade to give visitors a greater variety of amenities and improve downtown’s link to the waterfront.

Joe Peak is still running the Enaville Resort – the Snakepit, as locals know it – along the Coeur d’Alene River north of Kellogg. As he’s battled cancer and mourned the death of his wife earlier this year, the 66-year-old owner found a way to bring the legendary Silver Valley restaurant and bar back to a five-day-a-week operation this summer.

ST. MARIES – A sign behind the front desk of the Benewah County Sheriff’s Office wryly cautions visitors: “No whining, crying, outright blubbering or the likes thereof … whatsoever! This is a respectable jail.” It says nothing about breaking out, but the county is looking to discourage that behavior as well after a series of escapes through a deteriorating brick wall.